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Oregon Football

An offense by committee

Head coach Chip Kelly still calls the plays, but other coaches influence the UO offense as well

By Rob Moseley

The Register-Guard

Appeared in print: Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2009, page C1

The mix of ingredients sounded like a recipe for confusion.

A head coach who calls his own plays. An offensive coordinator with no background in the spread-option. A line coach who also carries the title of run-game coordinator.

Too many cooks spoil the broth? Not so, members of Oregon’s offensive staff said.

“It’s been a really good exchange of ideas,” line coach Steve Greatwood said.

The UO coaching staff experienced a tectonic shift over the offseason, beginning with Scott Frost replacing Robin Pflugrad as receivers coach. Then head coach Mike Bellotti became athletic director, spurring further change.

Chip Kelly was promoted from offensive coordinator to head coach, but retained playcalling responsibilities. Mark Helfrich was hired to fill Kelly’s old role, even though he had no experience in the spread-option offense. And Greatwood was named running game coordinator.

How did the Ducks respond to the turmoil? Entering the Rose Bowl against Ohio State on New Year’s Day, Oregon is on pace to lead the Pac-10 in rushing for a fourth straight year and scoring for a third straight season, and is within reach of a fourth straight crown in total offense.

“It’s been great,” said Helfrich, an Oregon native who joined the staff after stints at Boise State, Arizona State and Colorado. “And hopefully we’ll do nothing but get better as everybody gets to know each other even better.”

Helfrich, born in Medford and raised in Coos Bay, made his reputation in the passing game. Greatwood’s lines have cleared the way for four 1,000-yard rushers in the last three years, and Kelly coached everything from a pro-style offense to the spread during his career as a coordinator.

On game day, Kelly is the coach calling the plays for the Ducks. But the design of the game-plan, by coaches with diverse backgrounds, has been “very collaborative,” Helfrich said.

“When you’re in (meetings) it’s not that one guy has more influence over the other guy, or ‘He’s in charge,’ ” Kelly said. “It’s really a free-flowing thing, and we all just end up agreeing on things.”

The staff met late Sunday night each week during the regular season, after reviewing film of the previous week’s games for Oregon and its upcoming opponent. By Monday afternoon they generally had an idea of the game-plan, and then it was a matter of tweaking it over the remainder of the week.

Among the primary considerations to be made, coaches said, was which formations to field and what motions and shifting would best get the opposing defense off-balance.

“We’re going to do what we do,” Greatwood said. “It’s really a matter of how you dress it up.”

During games, Kelly was on the sideline, with Helfrich as his eyes in the sky from the press box. His ability to recognize coverages in the pass game, or analyze how the safeties and linebackers fit against the run, and then communicate them to Kelly, “has been awesome,” the head coach said.

“That’s probably one of the most important things as you get into a game against an opponent,” Helfrich said.

“It’s, ‘Hey, are they doing what we thought?’ Because everybody’s going to have their different counter-punch to what we do — how they’re going to play the tailback, how they’re going to play the quarterback, all those variations of how people fit our formations differently.”

Like every other element of the offense, the working relationship for the new staff got off to a slow start when Oregon opened the season at Boise State. With Kelly on the sideline rather than in the box, and expanding his duties from coordinator to head coach, communication between himself and the assistants wasn’t always smooth.

But the staff ironed out the kinks over the next few weeks.

Greatwood and Helfrich found their spots to communicate with Kelly, and figured out when to leave him be.